


Happier

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Series: wrong turn [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, ahh nepotism, duck feeding cliches, talk of suicide ideation because jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 01:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17274527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: Mycroft Holmes decides to try this government thing out after all. He has his own reasons.





	Happier

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think (in this verse at least) maybe this is temporary too. I'm not sure. I didn't really think about this hm

Mycroft comes home to complete quiet - which is not entirely unusual. Jim prefers to work in either absolute silence or with the cacophony of his playlist blaring at full volume and the news on three screens. 

 

The study is empty. 

 

He opens the bedroom door to find an entire medicine cabinet worth of pills spilled on the bed, Jim draped artfully beside them. 

 

Mycroft knows Jim's just playing, but his heart clenches uncomfortably anyway. 

 

He walks over to take a seat on the edge of bed, and brings his hand up to cup Jim's face. He brushes his thumb across his cheekbone - no reaction. 

 

Mycroft leans down to give Jim a quick kiss - and arms immediately wrap around his neck, tightening their hold as he pulls back up.

 

“Mycroft!” Jim says cheerfully, with mock surprise, “You’ve saved me!”

 

Mycroft squeezes back. He hates this part, when Jim expects him to make light of something that tears at him. 

 

“I thought you were working on the Monroe job,” he says instead. Maybe Jim is feeling cooped up. Maybe they should have traded roles this time. 

 

“Finished early,” Jim says into his shoulder. “So I took a nap.”

 

Mycroft looks around. 

 

“No note this time?”

 

Jim gives him a considering look. 

 

“Would you miss me? If I died,” Jim says. 

 

“I wouldn't know what to do without you.”

 

“You’d rule the world.”

 

“I'm not sure I'd want to.”

 

Jim looks touched. He leans in slowly, and presses a kiss to Mycroft's cheek. 

 

“I think that might be the sweetest thing you have ever said to anyone.”

 

.

 

They're not close out in public. In fact, the two of them are rarely ever out in public at the same time anymore. Just a security measure.

 

Mycroft kind of misses their silly lunch dates back when they had few enough jobs that one or both of them could play some nondescript character at the location of a intended hit at any given time.

 

Instead, he’s feeding the ducks with Harold.

 

“C’mon kid, you’re only two years out of school. You still have time to turn your life around,” the analyst says. Mycroft glances over at him. Harold is good at doling out crumbs slowly, taking almost the entire hour to go through the small packet of diced bread. Mycroft overfeeds them. The ducks crowd around near his feet, looking up expectantly. 

 

“You come from a good family, you’re intelligent, and clearly you have some interest in status,” Harold says. 

 

“You’re speaking awfully freely to someone who had you abducted and coerced,” Mycroft murmurs. “How do you know you can trust me? Many with my profile turn out to be perfectly terrible people. What if you don’t make it home today?”

 

Harold gives him a look, and there’s no fear in it at all. A year and a half ago, they’d abducted Harold and made him plant some software in MI5’s systems, making him all sorts of complicit. They ceased contact after that. But five weeks ago, Harold intercepted him at a crosswalk in the rain, and they ducked inside a shop to mill around for a while. Mycroft bought an umbrella that day, and has adamantly refused to go without it. 

 

“Look, I don’t know why exactly, but it’s clear that whatever it is you’re doing is not enough for you,” Harold says. 

 

Mycroft laughs, loud and sarcastic, condescending in his impulse to cover for fear. Or distress. Obvious to Harold means an open book to Jim. Jim already worries too much.

 

“And, what, you think serving my country will - fill this empty void in my life?” Mycroft asks sweetly.

 

“I think you need to be needed. And you’ll find no shortage of work of that sort here,” Harold says.

 

“I have a record,” Mycroft says.

 

“Not officially.”

 

“I thought we were speaking freely.”

 

“Alright you’re on the watchlist,” Harold says, throwing an uncharacteristically large chunk of bread at the mallards. “But come in, repent, say it was a lapse of judgement and that your situation has changed-”

 

Mycroft turns to him, openly aghast. “You want me to turn on Jim.”

 

“Not-” Harold holds up a finger. “Not turn  _ on _ him, per se. You could leave him out of it. I’m still working on it. Though, yes, eventually if he doesn’t, retire - he’ll still be on the watchlist, and you’ll be running point.”

 

Mycroft’s expression is grim, to mask how angry he is.

 

“I’m sure you can understand I have reasons for declining your very generous offer, then,” he says, and Harold sighs, loud and disgruntled.

 

“Look, Holmes, this thing with you two, it’s never going to work out. You two are cut from _very different_ _cloths._ One of you is going to get bored. It’s not going to end pretty. And then _both_ of you will go down.”

 

He turns to Mycroft, presumably to convey how serious he is via facial expression, but Mycroft’s already stomped away.

 

.

 

Mycroft enjoys having a study, a room entirely his, and organized only to his liking. It’s for work and nothing else. 

 

Jim’s is the attic, or sometimes the living room, and very rarely the unused guest bedroom. They’ve come a long way from sharing the space in Jim’s tiny dorm room, though their dining table is still where most of the biggest plans are mapped out together.

 

Mid-afternoon, lost in his work, Mycroft barely notices his study door opening until Jim has practically thrown himself across the room - plopping himself on Mycroft’s desk beside him.

 

Mycroft looks up and sees blood. 

 

“Jim!” He immediately starts checking him four wounds, and Jim, voice as languid as his body, drops into his lap.

 

“Don’t be silly, it’s not mine, I’m not about to leave evidence just lying around,” Jim says. He sounds almost sleepy, and Mycroft can see now that he’s not startled to death that there really isn’t much blood, it just look horrific splashed across his front like that. And Jim is perfectly unwounded.

 

“What did you get up to?” Mycroft asks, only lightly scolding. 

 

“Auditioning muscle,” Jim answers. 

 

“Dangerous, don’t you think?”

 

Jim laughs, “No! That’s what they’re for.”

 

Mycroft can tell Jim’s not in the mood to listen to reason, but he can’t help the sigh of breath, and leaning back away from him as he does so. Jim freezes.

 

“What were you thinking?” Mycroft asks. 

 

“Don’t tell me how to do this,” Jim shoots back, voice hard.

 

“Jim-”

 

“No! You wouldn’t come with me. You wanted to do this separately!”

 

Mycroft drags his hand down his face because evidently his boyfriend’s idea of passive aggressive behavior is to interview madmen by having them maim people in front of him. It’s a bad move, because in the second he looks away Jim’s pushed all his papers off the desk, hopping up from the chair so he can turn away from Mycroft and huff.

 

The worst part is it’s not the first time something like this has happened. 

 

He’s going to expect a fight, and then one of them will storm out of here, and then back again. It’ll end in tears and teeth marks and makeup sex. 

 

Mycroft thinks he can only humor Jim so many times before this, too, loses its novelty, and Jim feels pressured to up the ante. 

 

It also doesn't help that they’re always fighting about the same things. Jim may be creative, but he’s also learned the only thing that really gets a rise out of Mycroft is when he's put himself in danger.

 

Mycroft doesn’t know what’s worse - Jim putting himself in peril in increasingly risky ways, or the idea that Mycroft could one day stop caring about it.

 

Mycroft sighs and stands, turning Jim around to face him and cutting him off mid-rant. Jim’s curious look is also aborted by Mycroft pressing a hard, close-mouthed kiss to his, and then pulling back.

 

“Meet me in the bedroom in five minutes.”

 

Jim stares after him, not sure whether he wants to be pleased or upset. 

 

.

 

Mycroft pulls Jim into the electric room he had the foresight to steal the keys to and leave unlocked earlier, heart pounding, and is immediately attacked with kisses.

 

“Stop- what are you doing here?” Mycroft hisses. 

 

Mycroft had planned, for a whole week, his way into this biotech firm undetected, and now his cover as some lowly lab assistant (with more access than someone in his position should have) was about to be  _ blown _ . 

 

Jim just looks up at him with those big eyes, unfathomably dark. He doesn’t move his hands on Mycroft’s face and neck, their passionate position also threatening. 

 

He’d stolen a copy of Mycroft’s plans, evidently, and followed him in. Normally they wouldn’t have gone such a risky way to begin with. They could have bought the samples they needed from some actual disgruntled lab assistant. Or, give them something to be disgruntled about, and then propose the sale. Whatever. 

 

So it wasn’t that Mycroft wanted to sneak around here in the first place, it was a terribly boring role, but he certainly did not want Jim sneaking in after him and trying to have his way with Mycroft on a conference room table  _ (a conference room with glass walls) _ . 

 

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Jim asks in a dangerous tone.

 

Mycroft stares, incredulous. He doesn’t even know what to say. 

 

Evidently it’s enough to give Jim pause. 

 

His face crumples and he moves his hands down, smoothing out Mycroft’s lab coat collar and setting everything neatly again. He smiles, and it’s not nice at all. 

 

“Are you angry? Don’t be. Mycroft. Mycroft, say something.”

 

Mycroft covers Jim’s hand with his own.

 

“I think-” He bites his lip. “I am going to take that government job.”

 

It’s Jim’s turn to be shocked silent, but if anything, that frenetic energy he’s carrying seems to only grow.

 

He opens his mouth to speak, or try to speak, several times, before Mycroft holds him by the shoulders and takes a step back from him.

 

“You need to get out of here.  _ Unseen,  _ Jim. Go home. We’ll talk about this later.”

 

.

 

Mycroft isn’t looking forward to the state of their place when he gets home. Jim had somehow been stunned into compliance, and left without a word. That just means it’s all the more likely he’s trashed the place - and Mycroft can only hope he made it home to do so, rather than taking it out elsewhere on the way back.

 

He hears the blaring speakers before he’s even unlocked the door, and sighs with relief. But he barely gets the key in the lock before the door’s flung open away from him.

 

“Finally.”

 

Jim looks a right mess.

 

The radio is on on surround sound, and Mycroft turns to see the television smashed in. He thinks someone’s laptop is hooked up to speakers upstairs as well, judging by the overlapping voices. 

 

“Appropriate soundtrack,” he says lightly.

 

Jim follows him in, gingerly, keeping at a distance as if judging when to attack. He lets Mycroft take off his coat and take his time getting to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea.

 

“Glad to see the gas is still intact,” Mycroft says. Chances were one in ten that Jim would have rigged it to explode, honestly. 

 

Jim leans with his hip against the counter, and Mycroft grabs his hand to pull it back away from the flame with practiced ease.

 

Jim glares at him, then tears up.

 

“I won’t let you leave, I won’t. You’ll have to kill me before you can,” Jim says. 

 

Mycroft stares at the kettle, willing the water to boil. God, as if this wasn’t difficult enough. 

 

“I’ve been talking to Harold,” he says.

 

“Harry,” Jim scoffs. “I  _ know _ . I’m not  _ stupid. _ ”

 

Mycroft does a survey of sharp objects within reach. He shouldn’t have picked the kitchen for this talk.

 

“He offered me a position, as an analyst,” Mycroft says.

 

“I heard. Dreadfully boring,” Jim says conversationally, as if Mycroft hasn’t already made up his mind.

 

“I’m going to take it.”

 

“What the  _ fuck _ would you want with a stupid spook job?” Jim asks, with mocking disbelief, before turning to Mycroft with genuine confusion. “You  _ want  _ to answer to a bunch of aging, addled bureaucrats? Never to have the freedom to come and go as you please again?”

 

Mycroft refuses to lift his eyes from the kettle.

 

“There’s someone else,” Jim insists. He knows there isn’t. “Or is this because of something your stupid mother said?”

 

Ah, Mummy. Hadn’t talked to her in months. Mycroft hadn’t known she’d left another message. 

 

The kettle doesn’t whistle, but the water’s hot enough. Mycroft turns off the stove, and puts his hands on Jim’s wrists.

 

“Actually, Jim,” he says slowly, maintaining eye contact. “I think this could be fun.”

 

“Fun?  _ Fun?” _ Oh, he’s livid. A second later he looks like Mycroft’s just slapped him across the face. “Leaving me is your idea of fun?”

 

“Whatever it is, I can fix it. I swear-”

 

“Jim, it’s not that. You know it’s not. You’re bored. We had our work cut out for us a year or two ago, but now the ocean feels like a pond, doesn’t it? Don’t lie. And it’s simply not enough.”

 

Jim scowls at him.

 

“And I never get to see you anymore,” Mycroft adds, quiet. “We both have so many plate spinning in the air that you’re doing stupid things like meeting me in the middle of a job.”

 

Jim struggles out of his grasp so that he can hit Mycroft for that. 

 

“If I do this, if I take this job, I think I could play against you. Wouldn’t that be more interesting?”

 

Jim stops smacking him, but he still looks confused.

 

“I wouldn't go easy on you,” he says.

 

“I wouldn't expect you to.” Ah, now he’s getting it.

 

“You'd have to hang out with the  _ stuffiest  _ people,” Jim adds.

 

“Yes, I'm prepared to bear that burden,” Mycroft laments.

 

“And the politicians! They're all idiots!”

 

“So are most our clients, if you consider it,”

 

“Least they’re honest.”

 

“They really aren’t, Jim.”

 

Jim studies his face for a long time, then digs through the cabinets for mugs.

 

“You're serious aren't you,” he says.

 

“Mmhm.”

 

Jim narrows his eyes at him, then sets the cups down. He opens a drawer for the tea bags, and shuts them with a huff.

 

“Well. Don't have too much fun with espionage,” he says, as if the whole thing had been  _ his _ idea all along. “I refuse to lose you to their ranks.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

“And if they send you somewhere dangerous don’t think I won’t tail you.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Jim pouts. “You're really considering it then.”

 

“I’ve a meeting with Harold’s people in the morning if you agree.”

 

“And. What if I say no?”

 

Mycroft considers this.

 

“I think… I think I’ll have to do it anyway,” he says. Jim hands him a mug. “If I don’t, I fear, somehow, I might lose you.”

 

Jim throws his arms around his waist with the sole intention of squeezing all the air out of Mycroft. 

 

“You’ll never be able to get rid of me. Never.”

 

“Nor you me,” he wheezes. Jim lets up a bit. 

 

They stay like that for a while.

 

“And what if it’s a trap?” Jim mumbles into his chest.

 

“Then we’ll have all the more fun, won’t we?”

 

“Drink your stupid tea,” Jim mutters. 

 

.

 

Jim comes home in a rage, Mycroft only really a few steps ahead of him. He’s taking off his coat and scarf and trying to hide a smile when Jim slams the door open and closed again after him. They still don’t see each other as much as they did when they started, all the way back in university, but, Mycroft thinks, Jim is happier. He’s not bad either. 

 

“I lost  _ four trucks _ Mycroft, we’d worked that supply route for  _ months!” _

 

Instead of condolences, Mycroft offers Jim quite a smug smile. 

 

It seems to quell his temper anyway, as Jim just rolls his eyes, and then swats Mycroft’s behind as he walks away.

 

“Dinner?” Jim calls after him.

 

“Already ordered,” Mycroft calls back. “You’re playing all sorts of catch up recently, aren’t you.”

 

Jim catches him in their room, undoing his tie, and bats his hands away to do it for him. 

 

“I’m starting to regret giving you a head start,” he says darkly, voice and expression at odds with how gentle his hands are, helping Mycroft undress. 

 

“Alas, I was a poor, rookie analyst who warranted nothing but pity,” Mycroft sighs. “And now I’ve got my own office.”

 

Jim looks up, mouth open. Mycroft can’t keep up the act anymore, and laughs. 

 

“Yes, yes, youngest ever promoted to this level, you warned me, I didn’t listen,” he says, the last words mangled by Jim’s kissing him on the mouth. The purposely loud smooch tapers off into something soft and sweet and Mycroft’s not sure which one of them started it.

 

“You’re going to have to break me out of this place, soon,” he murmurs. “It’s getting a bit too comfortable.”

 

Jim looks at him, considering.

 

“Does it have a very big desk?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“The office. We should try it out first, before you go commit treason and all. I’ll drop by for lunch?”

 

“Ah! Jim, no, you can’t just waltz into government offices in the middle of the day.”

 

“Or, maybe you could bring me in for questioning?”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh, you like that idea, don’t you?” 

 

“You may have a point. There’s a very dangerous man on the loose and we need all the information we can get.”

 

“It only makes sense.”

 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> that's not what harold meant, mycroft


End file.
